VAWA

The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (NTF) is the leading organization advocating for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) at each reauthorization, and for its initial passage in 1994. Until now, VAWA has always been a bipartisan effort. This year, NTF has been actively working with both parties in Congress to reauthorize VAWA before it is set to expire on September 30, 2018.

Letter from the Steering Committee of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (NTF), the organization that advocates for the continuation and improvement of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding concerns about the controversial confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Legal Momentum is a member of the NTF Steering Committee.

Legal Momentum's Jennifer Becker spoke with New York Magazine's The Cut about the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Senator Dianne Feinstein's decision not to publicize the letter she received from a sexual assault survivor.

Deputy Legal Director and National Judicial Education Program Senior Attorney Jennifer Becker was on the WashingTECH Tech Policy Podcast with Joe Miller discussing Legal Momentum, tech and domestic violence on July 30, 2018. Jennifer discusses how abusers perpetrate domestic violence via technology, what victims can do to get help, and the need for legislators around the country to address these issues.

"I don't make history, I am history." — Joan Baez As we celebrate Women’s History Month, it makes sense to think about who makes history and how the present time will be viewed from the perspective of the future.

Women’s advocates were particularly dismayed by the news that the White House is planning “dramatic” federal budget cuts that include all 25 of the grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women, which is housed in the Department of Justice.

An exhibition titled Until Safety Is Guaranteed: Women and the Fight against Violence opens on April 6, 2015, and runs through August 14, 2015. It will be on view on the first floor of the Schlesinger Library, Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m."Gender-Based Violence and the Law

Citing a brief in which Legal Momentum participated as amicus, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the provisions of the Violence Against Women Act that ban gun possession by those who have been convicted in state court of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Sotomayor initially discussed the escalation of the severity of domestic violence over time, and the how the presence of firearms in that context could increase six-fold the likelihood of a survivor of violence being killed.

On February 6, 2014, the Department of Justice announced the first three tribes approved to implement special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction under the Violence Against Women Act of 2013. The three tribes are: the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and the Tulalip Tribe. Under the VAWA Pilot Project, these three tribes will be able to exercise criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic violence and dating violence, regardless of the defendant's Indian or non-Indian status.

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the historic passage of the watershed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)—the first comprehensive federal legislative package designed to end violence against women—which was signed into law in September, 1994 as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.